http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE HBO TELEVISION SERIES Sex and the City is vulgar. There has not
been this much decadence in the public eye since the release of the Starr
report. Sarah Jessica Parker has come a long way since her days as Annie.
Who knew the little orphan's Tomorrow would involve earnest discussions of
herpes? Nonetheless, Ms. Parker, star and "executive consultant" for the
show, has a hit on her hands.

This HBO series receives praise even from the likes of the Wall Street
Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz. Why do conservative minds fail to resist the
Ramsey Lewis Trio temptation to be with the "in" crowd? The draw of being
hip causes them to issue dribble as Ms. Rabinowitz did in her review last
week. Ms. Rabinowitz, who broke the Juanita Brodderick/Clinton rape story
with sufficient moral outrage that NBC was shamed into running its
dusty-from-the-shelf interview, finds Sex and the City well written and
possessed of Mary Tyler Moore Show charm.

Discussions about crabs, size of penises, and bed-hopping are not as
sprightly as the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode on MTM wherein the TV
station's clown, dressed as a peanut, was shelled to death by an elephant
during a circus parade. Melrose Place looks like the Love Boat next to this
show. "Sluts in Stilettos" would have been a better name for this silly
series. The four shameless women characters discuss, employing the language
of longshoremen, their latest sexually transmitted diseases as if they are as
natural as a Nyquil-cured cold.

The show's depravity is exceeded only by its shallowness. These women
never quite made it past high school --- all the emotion with about the same
level of commitment and insight. They are cheerleaders with good incomes and
designer clothes. Parker's character's voice mail message plays, "Hi, I'm
shopping for shoes. Leave a message." And shop she does for the next scene
shows her in sandals and rolled-up jeans busily chain-smoking and exclaiming
that her new $300 shoes are ruined because she has stepped in "horse____."
Ah, the eloquence of HBO writers. Jezebel at least had a vocabulary.
Yet every review praises the show's contribution to culture. USA Weekend
gushed, "Sex and the City -- back for its third season on HBO -- will
continue to make great TV out of the American woman's most intimate desires."
And those desires would be for VD?

The series ridicules those who commit to marriage, family life, or even
knowing someone's name before jumping in the sack with them. Leaving a baby
shower the four women mock the idea of motherhood. Conservatives should do
to Sarah Jessica Parker what gays and lesbians do to Dr. Laura. Complain
bitterly about the hatred for and intolerance of family life and abstinence
this show engenders. Demand that Sarah Jessica tone it down!

Parker

Conservatives will ignore the show. They should not. Setting aside the
language and Sarah Jessica Parker's too-tight and too-short clothes, the show
serves conservatives well. Its success and fawning reviews offer insight
once again into Hollywood morals. These women are hailed as strong,
independent moderns experiencing full lives as singles. Critics and Hollywood
see Sex and the City as a personal testament to single women leading happy
and fulfilling lives.

The portrayal and show backfire. Obsessed with their bodies, the
characters do flash, among other things, recognitions of the biological,
cellulite and droop clocks as they one-night-stand their ways through their
30s. The pickings for the derring duo times two are getting slim even as the
men who intrigue them choose twentysomethings over four liberated hags
navigating New York's rancid single scene.

The show is a weekly reminder of the cruel and unusual sentence of the
women's movement to its own. The Sex and the City gals are four miserable
broads. They shed tears for their departed men and can't figure out why men
love 'em and leave 'em. It's the old wives' wisdom that the show mocks, "If
you can get the milk for free, why buy the cow?" These four pitiful tarts,
who have been ridden more than Man 'O War and have the pelvic disease to
prove it, may be the best ammo a parent could have for abstinence. This show
about four sloppy left-overs proves only that single career "gals" don't have
glamour lives; they are left to prowl for companionship found only in bed and
with strangers.

Examine the lives of the women of Sex and the City. Take a look at the
emptiness and debauchery and your life with broken sprinkler heads, sticky
floors and cracking stucco will look gratifying. There will be spring in
your car pool stints. A potato exploding in your oven will be a delight.
You'll treasure those 3 AM moments with teething babies. You'll cherish
science projects and thank the heavens above for the privilege of stretch
marks that mean you've seen your last midriff top. You may be living an
unexamined life in $29 Keds, but it's a life worth living --- a conclusion you
will come to after just one episode of Sex and the
City.

JWR contributor Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State
University. Send your comments by clicking here.

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